Amit Langote <amitlangote09@gmail.com> writes:
> On Wed, Jan 6, 2016 at 11:51 PM, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:
>> "non-existant" is flat wrong, so if we're going to fix typos, let's
>> fix them to actually be English.
> So, non-existent? non-extant? I seems to me like an 's' accidentally
> sneaked in when the author of the comment tried to write the latter
> spelling. But the former sounds more familiar (at least to me).
"existent" is a word according to my dictionary, so "non-existent"
is fine. "extant" is also a word but it's less common and doesn't
really mean the same thing --- it carries a connotation of "still
in existence, surviving". So you might say "Stonebraker's papers
about Postgres from the '80s are still extant". "Existent" just
means "in existence" without any particular implication about time
passing, so it's probably what is meant in most cases.
(Actually, in the particular context here, I guess "extant" would
be sensible, but it would be rather hi-falutin' usage. I'd go
with "existent".)
regards, tom lane